The god particle,
He says and laughs
He is holding his daughter’s hand
And what is dark matter to him?
A punchline, perhaps.

She has, has
-not had I won’t say had-
A voice like abalone
Iridescent and truculent it shines
He’s curled around her like a spiral shell
He shields this pearl
From the swing of a star
Hides her from the scimitar moon

And the tide is calling to us now.
Churning debris along past the shore
It exposes the bones of ancient wrecks
Proof of the cruelty of Poseidon
A lesson in disaster
Who knows what undertow
Prowls this sand beneath our feet?
Submerged and holding our breath
We wait for it
And where is Moses when we need him
The desert prophet with his staff
To command the ocean be still
Not here, as far as I can see…

I’ll trust in voiceless mermaids
And sing nursery rhymes to an infant Venus
As sea-borne as a tear
I wish I were a manta-ray
With a venomous maw
And a whiplash tail that stings
Instead of flotsam drifting in the water

Oh, Moses led man once, it’s said
Out past these waves and onto dry land
That chariot was washed away
The soldiers drowned

Here in underwater caverns
The mermaid holds the hour-glass
I could shake it
And listen to the dry rasp of sand
Sifting Fate to its destination
But I haven’t the courage to break the glass
I have bled before
Bright crimson petals unfurling against the blue
Spreading like a constellation

I want to cradle the shell
Hold it to my ear
To listen to the ticking within
The breath of the ocean

I’ve been treading water
For too damned long
The weight of this water
Is more fickle than blood

The ocean-tide of his heartbeat
Carries me further from the shore
And here is a different Moses
As fierce as a sea-hawk

We draw our power from the Deep
As the armies appear on the beach
Heaven help the foe that faces him now
Nothing will take his treasure from him.